(20-03-2017 04:51 PM)abaris Wrote: So I gather you're not interested in facts but only in Polemics. The Great Leap Forward. That's what you wrongly associated with Mao being the protector of peasants when he actually was their killer.

Oh, likely more than that -- there are more than 10,000 variations of Christianity alone.

I will concede that "focus on the next life" is an interpretation on my part. But the element of the mystical is always there.

Quote:According to Rafał Imos author of Faith of the Soviet Man. The Soviet's Institutionalized Myth [snip]

I understand that the view of Marxism as religion was not unique to my apologist. Still, I believe it to be in error. It stretches the bounds of what is usually considered "religion" to include more colloquial uses of the term.

Someone may comment, for example, "he drinks beer religiously, every Friday evening", but few people, I think, would put that in the same category as "he goes to High Mass at the local Catholic Church every Sunday".

Quote:The Marxist prophetism, as we have seen, conforms to the typical pattern of the Judeo-Christian prophetism. Every prophetism condemns what is and sketches an outline of what should or will be; it chooses an individual or a group to cleave a path across the no-man’s land which separates the unworthy present from the radiant future. The classless society which will bring social progress without political revolution is comparable to the dreams of the millennium. The misery of the proletariat proves its vocation and the Communist Party becomes the Church which is opposed by the bourgeois/pagans who stop their ears against the good tidings and by the socialist/Jews who have failed to recognise the Revolution which they themselves had been heralding for years.

It's a very nice quote, but it mistakes philosophy for religion. People may have all sorts of dreams for the future, and latch onto all sorts of ideas that they hope will get them to their vision of the future. They may spend four hours a day reading anarchist philosophy; they may become vegetarian; they may start exercising; they may decide to vote only for candidates from a particular political party.

One (of many) problems with this view, is that it bolsters a not uncommon argument presented by theists, to the effect that "atheism is a religion".

One form of the argument goes, "Communism is a religion. Communism is atheistic; therefore communism is one atheist religion. Communist leaders like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, et al, have been responsible for huge atrocities and the deaths of millions. Therefore, atheism is responsible for these heinous acts." I leave out a lot of intermediary steps and verbiage, which I'm sure you can fill in for yourself.

This argument is then presented, in fine tu quoque fashion, to enable religion to excuse Christianity, Islam, etc. for things like Crusades, Jihads, Inquisitions, etc., by claiming that atheism has a just as high -- or higher -- body count.

I reject that argument on many levels, but fundamentally on the level that neither atheism, nor communism are religions.

(20-03-2017 04:16 PM)Fred Hampton Wrote: Mao couldn't keep this eye on or do much anything about that. And there's a famine in the transition, so Mao's trying to focus the people and get the collective farming thing up and running so people wouldn't starve.

I don't know where you get your informations from, but it was actually Mao being responsible for the famine. The peasants were made to produce steel, which led to the biggest famine in human recorded history. As far as deaths go, Mao dwarfs the likes of Stalin or Hitler. He was directly responsible for as many victims as had died in WWII.

Since this is in reference to 'governance' ... not responsible; accountable:

The proof is all over the place since it's accepted history. Are you quite capable to read up on the Great Leap Forward or does it have to be served on a silver link platter. I'm done with people demanding proof, proof, proof when their own arguments are as stupid as Holocaust denial.

Here's wiki. It provides links to source material if you're at all interested, that is.

(20-03-2017 04:30 PM)abaris Wrote: I don't know where you get your informations from, but it was actually Mao being responsible for the famine. The peasants were made to produce steel, which led to the biggest famine in human recorded history. As far as deaths go, Mao dwarfs the likes of Stalin or Hitler. He was directly responsible for as many victims as had died in WWII.

Since this is in reference to 'governance' ... not responsible; accountable:

Really? A little corporate chart?! Was Barack Obama "accountable" for some rogue cop killing that kid in Cleveland? Or that guy picking off a buncha cops in Dallass? Or or or x a million. Was Barack Obama accountable for the droughts in So-Cal or Hurricane Sandy? Etc. Shit happens, people and Nature do messed up shit, people die, there's no God.

(20-03-2017 04:56 PM)Dr H Wrote: Well, we are going to continue to disagree on that point, I think.

Looks like. I'm totally unconvinced by your take and I see why you could feel the same.

Quote:Oh, likely more than that -- there are more than 10,000 variations of Christianity alone.

I will concede that "focus on the next life" is an interpretation on my part. But the element of the mystical is always there.

Paradise on earth achieved by working class destined to end alienation and jump from real of necessity to realm of freedom could be called mystical I would say.

Quote:I understand that the view of Marxism as religion was not unique to my apologist. Still, I believe it to be in error. It stretches the bounds of what is usually considered "religion" to include more colloquial uses of the term.

Hardly. It have it saints and prophets, promised utopia, sinners.

I realize though that what I write and what is written in the book are two different things. I'm convinced that m-l was religion but if I didn't know this book it's quite possible that I would see it like ideology with religious themes or something like that.

Quote:Someone may comment, for example, "he drinks beer religiously, every Friday evening", but few people, I think, would put that in the same category as "he goes to High Mass at the local Catholic Church every Sunday".

That's nothing more than reductio ad absurdum.

Quote:It's a very nice quote, but it mistakes philosophy for religion. People may have all sorts of dreams for the future, and latch onto all sorts of ideas that they hope will get them to their vision of the future. They may spend four hours a day reading anarchist philosophy; they may become vegetarian; they may start exercising; they may decide to vote only for candidates from a particular political party.

None of these things are "religion".

I disagree. This quote shows m-l for what it is and it is nothing more than another religion.

Quote:One (of many) problems with this view, is that it bolsters a not uncommon argument presented by theists, to the effect that "atheism is a religion".

One form of the argument goes, "Communism is a religion. Communism is atheistic; therefore communism is one atheist religion. Communist leaders like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, et al, have been responsible for huge atrocities and the deaths of millions. Therefore, atheism is responsible for these heinous acts." I leave out a lot of intermediary steps and verbiage, which I'm sure you can fill in for yourself.

This argument is then presented, in fine tu quoque fashion, to enable religion to excuse Christianity, Islam, etc. for things like Crusades, Jihads, Inquisitions, etc., by claiming that atheism has a just as high -- or higher -- body count.

I reject that argument on many levels, but fundamentally on the level that neither atheism, nor communism are religions.

Again I disagree. Atheism isn't religion, but m-l was, yet only by twisting truth one can ascribe crimes of bolsheviks and rest to atheism. They killed cause they had faith in principles of m-l or local variation, not cause they didn't believed in local variant of space wizard.

Also communism never was* so yes it couldn't have been religion, marxism-leninism on the other hand...

*Even USSR satisfied itself with declaring to having achieved "really existing socialism" during Brezhnev era. Countries of Soviet bloc according to Andrzej Walicki thought themselves as countries that are in process of building communism, they were called communist by it's enemies.

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

Quote:"Anarcho socialist" would more properly be labeled "Anarcho-communist", but that gets a bit redundant. To me, it's like "agnostics" v "atheists". The atheists are serious, have a commitment.

Well, there's your problem. "agnostics" v "atheists" is an apples/oranges comparison. Agnosticism is about knowledge; atheism is about belief.

I repeat, there are many kinds of anarchist philosophy. I, for example, am a social anarchist. This is not the same as "anarcho-socialist", though I know some people of that persuasion. I am not a communist, though I admit I did flirt with communism when I was younger.

Quote:The anarchists can never seem to get enough numbers to get on the same page with a pointed policy program, which is necessary if you want to accomplish anything--especially on a grand scale.

That, too, comes with the territory. Organizing anarchists is kinda like trying to heard cats.

I think we do fulfill an important educational function, however. And, as has been pointed out, education takes time. Change can be accomplished through evolution, as well as through revolution.